CU student quarantined in Beijing amid swine-flu fears

By Jennifer Brown, The Denver Post

Boulder graduate student Thomas Spradling was two days into a trip to study the Beijing art scene when his plans were abruptly interrupted by Chinese authorities dressed in white biohazard suits.

Now, the University of Colorado student is quarantined in what he describes as a sweltering, decrepit hotel where the food is “mostly gristle” and the beds are “solid as a rock.”

He and his mother, Barbara Spradling, were rounded up two days after arriving in Beijing, forced to leave their four-star hotel and driven, sirens blazing, to a quarantine hotel.

The pair were among between 100 and 200 travelers stuck in the hotel — the latest international travelers held in China because of the swine-flu scare. New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin spent about four days in a Shanghai hotel earlier this month after a flight from Newark, N.J.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta began warning travelers last month that they might end up quarantined overseas if someone on their flight is suspected of having swine flu.

Chinese authorities kept dozens of Mexicans under quarantine soon after the swine-flu epidemic began in Mexico and have been screening air passengers who arrive from the U.S.

Spradling, 25, said Chinese health officials took infrared temperature readings from the foreheads of all the passengers on his flight. He and his mother were cleared and spent the next two days exploring the Great Wall and the Forbidden City.

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